This college wanted to create an attractive and functional breakout space to include a café zone for its students and teachers to relax in before, after and in-between lessons. They also had a requirement to soften the space, create a feature and create a visual screen from above.

Our solution was to provide five 2m x 2m hanging Barracuda canopies – a classic hypar canopy on a frame. The white Barracudas together create a stunning feature and help to create curved lines in a very linear space, softening the area and lowering the ceiling to make it more cosy for people underneath. They also form a protective barrier so that items cannot potentially be dropped onto people below.

The canopies are made from a class O fire-rated fabric and were rigged from the existing structure using a series of cable bridles and were installed in one day during the holidays.

The Barracuda is a popular interior product and can also be made using an acoustic fabric if noise reverberation is also a problem.

Here is another example of the Barracuda, this time in an atrium setting where strategic sun shading was required.